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I have seen his signature on it. I never said "he" threw him into the swimming pool, if you re-read what I said, you will see I did not say that. His influence was there all the way in Eans treatment though and I doubt very much that all of that would have happened to him if Wessely hadn't been "in the background". Ean was sent to see him and it was from there that he was sectioned. There is a video on youtube with Eans mother saying all of this and Ean is in the video as well, so it's not false information.
Wessely may defend his actions in relation to Ean Proctor in terms that he (Wessely) couldn't know what the circumstances of Ean Proctor's enforcd hospitalisation would involve - such a defence is mealy mouthed at best, no one in Britain in the 1970s and 1980s could have been unaware of either the general poverty of hospital care available for psychiatricly ill teenagers anywhere in the UK, of the inadequacy of health povision in the Isle of Man, and of the prevailing attitudes to children in the Isle of Man. Wessely seems to have been hell bent on 'proving a point' without any concern for what the reality would mean for Ean Proctor. Excusing Wessely from direct responsibility for Ean Proctor's abusive treatment, while at the same time acknowledging Wesseley's culpability in opening the door to that abusive treatment, may seem legalisitic but it is important to make that distinction if we are to understand how that particular circumstance evolved. Ultimately the Isle of Man authorities could have chosen to ignore Wessely and follow the advice of the neurologist, the fact that Wessley's advice was preferred is a reflection of the prevailing prejudices of those authorities, rather than of Wessley's culpability.
Whether a near quarter of century later, the circumstances of Ean Proctor's mistreatment has anything substantive to add to an effective critique of the psychologisation of M.E/CFS, is in my view, doubtful; certainly for an audience such as the BMJ, if doubt is to be raised over the validity of the Wessley approach, the debate needs to be presented in contemporary, not historical terms. My guess is that most medics of all disciplines would be likely to forgive Wessely any failings from his early career, on grounds of "there but for the grace of [insert supernatural entity of choice] go I". Tactically, the first thing we need to do is stop giving those we want to criticise, 'free' return shots in the form of crazed diatribes and personal threats which simply allow us to be 'bagged up' in the very categorisations we are trying to escape.
IVI